Chap 5
Ok I have absolutely no idea who turned evil but if you mean the discipline group they haven't turned evil though someone else has.
If there are any other questions or suggestions then just post and I'll answer in the next chap thanks- Aeo
"Did you or did you not do the work." One of the Dedicate's eyebrows shot up with this question as he stared at the solid shivering girl in front of him. She come up to his chin and stood as straight as the red hot poker in his bare hands while she stared straight at his Adams apple.
"No sir I didn't finish the work." Her voice came out in a whisper that either of them could barely hear so she took a deep breath and tried again. "I didn't finish the work sir." She continued to stare straight at his throat and tried to wipe all emotion from her face. Here in the light troop's mage training center emotion meant weakness and weakness meant death.
The education Dedicate sighed and gently tapped the poker on the floor, marking it with small burn spots before his gaze returned to the dark muscular girl before him. She took a deep breath as she counted to seven silently before releasing it, bringing the silver glow of the room before her dark brown eyes.
Her healing gifts also sprung forward ready to be used to help, but helping was not what she was being taught. Instead her gift brought visions of what could be broken inside. With the stomach pierced and a ruptured spleen a subject would be in agony until the slow end of death came with no mark on the outside of what had happened.
"Apprentice Rowanbark!" Rowan jumped from the sudden yell and the brief pain from a kiss from the poker. She stood straighter and looked down before squarely meeting his gaze. "Yes Dedicate Lightspinner?" She asked, determined to meet what was coming head on, instead of slinking into the shadows like a thief.
The dedicate folded his hands on the desk in front of and stared at the girl before making his proclamation. "Two new mages have been found by the guard." He said his smooth voice trickling over the room, "they are being brought here and you must" he smiled and Rowan fought a shudder as his fat cheeks spread with it, making his attempt in a smile sag into a grimace. "Take care of them shall we say." He sat back with a satisfied smirk as his chair groaned beneath him and his gold trimmed white robe.
The dark haired apprentice moaned and quickly bowed before leaving the office. Once she was out of ear shoot she leaned against the wall and pressed her face against the smooth cold stone. The new apprentices never lasted unless they came at a young age, as all of them knew. Even then only the strongest survived and many of the successful ones had to, she shuddered remembering the looks on many of the last year apprentices when they had heard the new rule.
"The bloodline of mages must continue" it read as the stuffy lord chamberlain sorrowfully read it out, wincing when he heard a sob. Rowan sighed from the memories and trotted off to the front gate. She prepared herself to meet the new students who were bound to arrive at any moment and she didn't want to be caught unaware.
"Hi!" a girl suddenly appeared in front of her as she was in sight of the front gate. Rowan startled reacted with her magic, sending it forth to push the girl backwards. She slammed into the wall and the side of her face took the brunt of it, breaking her long pointed nose. Rowan's hands flew to her face then back down to the girl who was brushing off her clothes as she got up from the ground. "Here let me help you." Rowan's hands rose to the girl's nose and she dropped her magic barriers.
The magic surged through both of them, lighting the hall pale silver as both started to glow. Cartilage grated again under her fingers and she screamed as the magic rushed back, tearing down her barriers and dropping them both to the floor. Rowan stared at the ceiling breathing heavily as she tried to make sense of what happened. She had never healed anything before only caused pain in classes. But she thought as she slowly got up, shaking from exhaustion, healing was what she was meant to do.
"Are you ok?" The tall girl in front of her held her steady with a clumsy grip as worry flashed through her hazel eyes. "I'm fine." Rowan gasped as she leaned against the wall only to discover it was soft and a brief flash of pain registered in her brain. "Frye!" A hoarse voice yelled as the wall suddenly pulled away from her and she stumbled only to have the girl, Frye, catch her. "Ailan I can't see you!" Frye held Rowan up with one hand as she searched around with the other, the sun glinting off her bronze hair as she turned towards it. "Over here." A shadow shifted in the corner to reveal the scrawny pale faced girl that hadn't been there a minute before.
"What type of mages are you?" Rowan's voice came out in a squeak and she turned to Frye. "I'll be all right." Frye nodded cheerfully and let go of the healer to lean against the wall. Ailan ignored Rowan and stood in front of Frye with her hands folded over her chest, staring sternly at the girl that was happily whistling while small bits of the middle stone in the wall fell to the ground.
"Frye you're doing it again." The taller girl looked down and saw the small pieces of gravel surrounding her. She smiled sheepishly and quickly gave two short whistle bursts. The gravel was gone and was pot shaped like a chicken. Rowan reached towards it, picking it up as she hefted the weight of it. "A chicken?" Ailan's eyebrow rose as Frye stared at the ground. "I'm hungry and I thought of a chicken first so." She spread her arms and Rowan giggled at the sight of the smaller Ailan reprimanding the much taller Frye.
Rowan tapped Ailan's shoulder to ask her something but Ailan quickly jerked away. "Don't touch me." She froze and stared at Rowan's pained expression, before sighing and sinking down against the wall. Frye frowned and sank down beside her. Rowan shifted uncomfortable from foot to foot as she stood facing the two friends that were also seemed to be the new students.
"Rowan!" She quickly turned to see her main "healing" instructor, Dedicate Oakchime, standing barely three feet away. Quickly her head dropped and she gave a stiff bow to the intimidating woman who stared at the new arrivals with a loaded gaze. Frye seemed unbothered by this and smiled up at the woman before rising to extend a hand. "I'm Frye who are you?" Her bright smile was offset by the teachers glare as she stared straight into Frye's level gaze. "Apprentice Frye, I am Mage Oakchime and the instructor of healing arts" She paused and turned to stare at Ailan who was still sitting on the floor. "Why do you not rise for a Mage, stand up!" She grabbed the thin girl's shoulder just as her face turned to meet her gaze.
Oakchime froze and an expression of fear crossed her face as Ailan's eye's changed. Her normal Brown flecked grey eyes were gone, replaced by pools of ebony that seemed to swirl in a tight circle, expanding until no pupil showed. "Don't touch me." Her voice came out in a angry whisper, and Rowan could hear the pain radiating through the girl, as she fought her magic.
Oakchime screamed as she saw her magic start to drain into the waiting pool inside this girl and Frye quickly grabbed her and pulled her back breaking her connection with Ailan as the girl began to glow with shadows. "Frye." Her voice came out in a struggled gasp and her eye's opened for a second revelling two brown flecked, grey eyes before these eyes rolled up and she collapsed in a dead faint.
Rowan quickly slipped into mediation breathing before opening her eyes to see the magic. Magic still streamed from Oakchime to Ailan, but it was a weaker stream. She watched it a second longer before she saw it wasn't slowing down. Panicking She slammed a shield down between it and watched in growing horror as the shadow magic now ran through that shield to her leaving only enough magic for Oakchime to live. She quickly withdrew her shield to throw it up again in front of this shadow but it just attacked the wall like a starved tiger that knows there's a meal on the other side. The wall crumbled and the shadows streaked across the final foot to pierce Rowan's side.
She screamed and doubled over as a sheet of fire spread through her body and every joint, muscle and organ in search of her magic. It was like they just shoved every thing aside and dived in heedless of what broke or was destroyed in their haste. Another spike shoot through her side and she writhed in agony as three more propelled themselves through her skin. Her magic was going crazy as it tried to find the pain though there was nothing wrong with her body, just pain. Suddenly she stiffened and screamed loader then any time before as the power found her magic. It was like they were mining under her skin, in her bones and in her very heart as she felt the ripping pain of everything being carried back to the body the shadows inhabited.
Ailan, Rowan thought as she fought to get out of the shadow's grasping tendrils. Here, the soft voice of the shadow mage spoke through the tendrils that grasped her power and she could hear the pain through the mind link. Quick send out your own thread, Ailan offered no explanation but the urgency and worry in the thought broke through the pain. In the shimmering light of her power she took a handful of veins and tossed them around Ailan. Nothing's happening, she moaned to the shadowy form of the girl. Frye.
Rowan's eyes flew open and landed on Frye who was already approaching the thrashing Ailan, whistling under her breath to calm down before placing her hands on her friends shoulders. The screams were immediate and in their shared mind, Ailan winced as Frye dug her fingers through the thin fabric of her tunic. Rowan, I'm going to connect the veins! Rowan started and started to ask how did you know my nam, not now ask later! Ailan shouted before reaching to the vein tendrils that surrounded her body. Frye! Drive them into my magic with threads of yours,
But,
just do it! Rowan broke in sending more threads and desperately she tried to get one to the swirling pool of magic inside her new friend.
Frye gritted her teeth in pain and frustration before reaching clumsily to the core of her power. Each time she grasped a thread it would slip out of her grasp and soon Rowan was frantic with worry. Frye, Rowan, someone else is in my mind! Their power . . . Suddenly Ailan's voice rang out through the hall startling the people who had rushed there at the first scream. It was no longer filled with pain, but purpose and power. "Hear me!" she called out her eyes widening revealing the full pools of ebony "And listen well! The stream of fire is dying and only the light will show the way for the shadowed; the whistler will lead those who follow, the healer with no teaching, the silent seer, and the shadow in need of light, for they shall quench the flame and start a new age for the forgotten gods!" Rowan grasped Frye's hand strengthened by the change in Ailan's voice and reached the other to Ailan's shoulder.
Silver light blossomed around them and slowly filled the hall, as the three friends grasped the surging shadows while Frye grasped a hand full of her magic. She quietly began to whistle and slowly the song of the four mages sprung from her lips and spilled across the hall centering their power as the veins and rhythms of magic tightened around the shadows, forcing them back into Ailan's well of magic. The shadow's surged quickly forward when they got there trying to break the barriers as the veins and rhythms intertwined. Rowan gasped in pain as the shadow's battered against her magic, soon they would escape.
Light like before! Frye grinned and quickly gather her magic. She quickly built up a light melody around the shadows then cut herself off. Rowan smiled and strengthened the melody until no shadows would escape randomly like they did now before cutting off. Ailan watched this with curiosity and she reached inside and fond some of her life force untouched by her magic and added that to the protectiond. With a nod of satisfaction she opened her eyes to find that Frye lying to one side asleep with Rowan on the other. With her two friends on either side and a crowd in the door way, she instantly collapsed into the dark gentleness of sleep.
That's chapter 4 ok into the real plot next chap these are like set up plot lines and character description please review- Aeo.
